And, yes, it will now take a lot of extra work to make the currently inaccessible accessible but these are not legacy sites here. They’re all pretty new and were created after WCAG 1.0 came into force. CAPTCHAs have been known to create particular problems for years. It’s arguable that some of these sites either chose to ignore those issues or did not prioritise the needs of disabled users. Others have tried alternatives but, thus far, they haven’t really been successful.

Personally, I think legal action has to be the very last resort. For a start, even the largest charity/advocacy groups can only fund 1 or 2 law suits per year. You need big money.

Secondly, if a law suit did go ahead, just think of the sheer amount of hard cash that would be funnelled into defending such a suit. Money that could be better used in developing and testing the accessible versions of the very features that are being highlighted in the report. So why not just skip the law suit and go straight to adding some of the features in the next development roll out? Probably a lot cheaper and less stressful all round.

Whether anyone could “cover all disabilities”, I don’t know. But that’s not what is being asked here. What is being asked, pretty specifically, is that the site operators look at alternatives to visual CAPTCHA challenges and the provision of effective user-friendly support. Solving these two issues alone won’t magically make an entire site accessible but it will be a good start. Then perhaps the site’s operators could open a dialogue with disabled users and begin to consider their needs alongside those of other stakeholders.

I suppose if someone was to challenge them using the DDA they could potentially force change, but its very unlikely.

Realistically to cover all disabilities on a site/service like that would be a bloody nightmare, and I pity any mug that takes it on.